Steve Palmer's Charles Schwab Challenge third-round preview, best bets

Where to watch

Sky Sports Golf, 5pm Saturday

Best bets

Jordan Spieth to win the Charles Schwab Challenge
4pts 10-11 general

Sergio Garcia to win twoball
2pts 5-6 general

Story so far

Jordan Spieth leads the Charles Schwab Challenge by a shot going into the weekend and is threatening to the turn the tournament into a procession at one of his happiest hunting grounds.

Spieth won the tournament by three shots in 2016 and can boast Colonial Country Club form figures of 7-14-2-1-2-32-8-10. He started the week as 10-1 favourite and goes into the weekend as a general 10-11 for the trophy.

Jason Kokrak is alone in second place, with a two-shot gap to Sebastian Munoz, Sergio Garcia and Patton Kizzire, the trio tried for third.

Last week's US PGA hero, Phil Mickelson, was among those to miss the halfway cut in Texas. Mickelson, Patrick Reed and Sungjae Im all fell one shot shy of the qualification mark, while Scottie Scheffler and Lee Westwood also face a weekend off.

Leaderboard
-11 Jordan Spieth
-10 Jason Kokrak
-8 Sebastian Munoz, Sergio Garcia, Patton Kizzire
-7 Maverick McNealy, Charley Hoffman, Adam Hadwin, Erik Compton

Best prices
10-11 J Spieth, 5 J Kokrak, 14 S Garcia, 16 C Hoffman, 20 C Morikawa, P Kizzire, 22 S Munoz, 40 M McNealy, A Hadwin, 50 bar

Third-round preview

The only question mark against the name of Jordan Spieth coming into this week's Colonial gathering was how badly he putted during the US PGA Championship last week. The fickle nature of putting form, though, has been highlighted again as Spieth lies third in the Charles Schwab putting statistics through two rounds.

On greens with which he is much more familiar, Spieth has instantly and emphatically put his Kiawah Island putting woes behind him, revelling on the Colonial dancefloors. He did not enjoy the paspalum grass of Kiawah, but is oozing comfort on the bentgrass of Colonial.

Spieth has been a bit loose on approach this week, but it has not mattered - because he has been rolling putts in from everywhere. It is completely understandable that bookmakers have had enough of taking odds-against Spieth this week.

The Dallas-based star won the Texas Open at the start of April and looks set for a quickfire Texas double. Justin Thomas is nine shots behind Spieth, while Collin Morikawa (six), Justin Rose (seven) and Daniel Berger (seven) have also given themselves a weekend mountain to climb.

Playing at odds-on with 36 holes to play may be an unappealing prospect to many punters, but Spieth may stretch his advantage in round three to something which turns Sunday into a bore.

Third-round twoball punters are pointed towards Sergio Garcia, who is striking his ball with great authority. The Texas-based Spaniard can be fancied to outscore Sebastian Munoz in the penultimate twoball (8pm UK and Ireland time). Spieth and Kokrak follow ten minutes later.

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